Ian sat at his cookie-cutter desk in the 7th Precinct of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. His broad shoulders hunched, and elbows tucked in, tapping away at his keyboard with the grace of a gorilla. Standard one-size-fits-all did not apply to someone of Ian’s size. At six-foot-five he was comically crammed into his desk with his knees pressed to the underside. He was frustrated by his current case, and struggling for answers. He glanced over at the framed photos on his desk, his parents. Whenever he was in this state he often looked at the photo for inspiration.
His father’s vibrant green eyes, the same color as Ian’s, reflected pride back at him. Ian stood between his parents holding up his college acceptance letter. Strands of dull blonde hair poked at his Father’s eyes, much the same as they did to Ian today. It had been a constant war with his mother for them both to get haircuts. That was the last picture he’d taken with his Dad looking healthy.
After high school, Ian had gone off to college to become an engineer. Then in his last semester, Ian’s father fell ill. Emphysema, a smoker's best friend. Ian returned home to help his mother, Thea, with the mounting bills. He’d ended up in the police academy within a week. Ian had become a patrolman after the twenty-eight-week course, top of his class. From there, it was a downhill slide for the McClintoc family. An arduous three years later, almost to the day, the battle ended for the senior McClintoc.
Ian never regretted his decision, but he did sometimes wonder what might have been. Particularly with Marci Bowers, his college girlfriend. They’d been together almost the entire four years of his college career, and he’d assumed they would marry once they graduated. Marci even offered to drop out and move back to D.C. with him, insisting that her degree could wait. Ian refused, he didn’t want her to throw away her future on him.
Once he and his mother had buried Ian’s father, he couldn’t bring himself to leave her all on her own. He stayed, finding he had a knack for police work, and rose to the rank of detective-sergeant in near-record time. He had expected the job to be, at least a little, like the movies. Instead, it was a lot of paperwork, a lot of footwork, and a lot of dead ends. Much like the case he was working on today: homicide, dead gang member, no witnesses, no weapon, no prints. The more jaded of his peers would’ve considered the case a waste of time, but not Ian. He felt that everyone deserved justice and closure.
He pulled himself back from the past, and continued punching away at the keys hoping to find any miniscule detail that could break the case. He double-clicked the icon on his Desktop which read “RootyTootyPointAndShooty.exe.” It was a trajectory mapping software that Marci had designed. He used it to start plotting out the origin point of each gunshot. Granted the lab techs were going to do their own analysis, and he trusted them, but Ian still preferred to go over it himself. As Ian finished entering in the last of the data, and hit execute, the door to the bullpen opened.
In waltzed his partner Martin Anders, carrying a box that looked suspiciously like doughnuts from the Sugar Shack. Anders had close-cropped black hair giving him a military look, but in truth Anders only wanted to avoid having to comb or style it in the mornings. His square jaw, broad shoulders, and short legs often gave the impression of a bulldog. Anders had been his partner since Ian got promoted to the detective unit, and a mentor long before that.
“Morning Anders,” Ian rumbled. His already deep baritone was a bit gruffer at this early hour.
The senior detective sat the doughnut box on his desk and pulled out a sugary number while removing one of the coffees from the holder. He slid the steaming cup across his desk and onto Ian’s. The alluring aroma tickled his nose and Anders nodded in satisfaction.
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“Now that I’ve got your attention, Captain assigned us a new priority case,” He grumbled, setting the doughnut aside and pulling out his phone. He thumbed through the assignment feed, adding smudges of maple icing to the already dirty screen. “Though I should warn you, it’s also a bullshit assignment. Petty vandalism stuff from the sounds of it. A Mr. Gwilt from the Historical Society, who it just so happens is one of the Mayor’s top donors, called the Captain directly. Apparently, the Mayor’s idiot assistant gave out the Captain’s personal number. He was checking on their site on Anacostia Drive and saw, and I’m quoting here, ‘men dressed in red robes, and flashes of green and gold light.’ And he heard what sounded like,” Anders did air quotes with his free hand as he continued, “‘a bull being slaughtered’ coming out of an abandoned waterfront warehouse across the street. Translation: kids were playing shitty music and tagging the building, maybe throwing around smoke bombs and glow sticks.”
“Let me guess,” Ian said as he leaned back, “Middle of the night, unpopulated area, same as the others?” He furrowed his brow as he cogitated on the particulars, recalling similar reports.
Anders nodded as he dropped his phone on his desk and went back to chomping away.
There were reports floating around town lately, especially in the 7th district. But for some reason, they didn’t find a single worker, drifter, or loiterer near any of the locations. Ian had lived in D.C. his entire life and liked to think that he had his finger on the pulse of his city. He wanted to chalk this report up to the local fraternities coming up with some new kind of initiation. Or at least he hoped that’s all it was… But the homeless issue was nagging at him.
“Yup,” Anders swallowed, “We’ve already got the go-ahead from the bank to search the place. So our gang case has been reassigned.”
History was a big deal in D.C. It was both the pride and bane of many people’s jobs, including the police. Ian was sure that was the real reason the Captain had assigned it to them. And the media was dramatizing this vandalism as history being erased. Which only put additional pressure on the Captain to put the case to bed. Ergo the higher-ups chose to placate everyone by putting two detectives on a one beat cop job.
The door to the pen opened as the morning shift filtered in. Ian waved to a few of them while Anders wandered off to socialize. Ian stared blankly at his monitor, not really seeing it. He was busy running over the rest of the vandalism reports in his head. So far, there were five counts of strange lights and sounds coming from the waterfront. Here in the 7th, and up along the 2nd district. Almost all the reports were the same, amounting to nothing more than some property damage to the old, long-abandoned buildings.
Anders came back and landed heavily on the seat at his adjacent desk, making himself comfortable. Ian chose the exact moment Anders settled to get up. He caught his knee yet again on the underside of the tiny desk as he slid back and let out a pained grunt. Being his height was both a blessing and a curse. Ian had to endure what he often called ‘Goldilocks syndrome,’ since everything in this world seemed to be made for a maximum height of six feet. He had learned to excuse grace in favor of everyday functionality, but nothing ever felt “just right.”
Ian went to the coat rack, after rolling down the sleeves of his white button-down shirt, he grabbed his navy-blue suit coat and slid into it. Patting his pockets to make sure he had his phone, he went back to his desk to retrieve his distracted partner.
“C’mon, you lummox - we can’t sit around all day,” Ian said.
Noticing his partner’s impatience, Anders made a show of deliberately licking the amalgam of sugary toppings from his fingers before standing up to follow. A petty revenge on his part.
The pair navigated the precinct’s narrow hallways heading towards the carpool. Ian had never liked the white, utilitarian paint job covering the walls from floor to ceiling. Bureaucratic signs hung everywhere along with ‘helpful’ colored lines in the linoleum. The lines made it almost impossible to follow one without disobeying the other. They, however, knew where they were going.
They saddled up to their nondescript car in the parking lot. As per usual, they had a coin toss to determine who would be driving today. And as per usual, Ian lost. He was certain that Anders was cheating, but he couldn’t figure out how. It frustrated him to no end.